Surviving a Hot College Roommate (and then appreciating it)
by Veterization
Summary: Allison/Lydia college AU oneshot. After living in blissful solitude in her dorm room during Lydia's sophomore year at college, she gets a roommate named Allison.


_Disclaimer: _I do not own Teen Wolf.

_Notes: _This is for Sarah, the bestest friend to ever best who asked for an Allydia college AU! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Now go enjoy some lesbian porn.

* * *

If her tiny cardboard box of seashell paperweights and purple suitcase aren't enough of an indicator, Lydia can tell that the brunette practically reeks of "new girl" vibes.

She has that look in her eyes like she's cautiously attempting to get a grasp on the area and a nervous tick to her hands when she gets introduced to newcomers that shows that maybe she's shy, but that's the thing about people who abruptly move halfway through the school year, everybody says it's impossible to tell anything about them right off the bat.  
Lydia, however, will take that challenge.

First thing she notices about new girl is that they have the same room, which is unfortunate, because Lydia especially pulled strings just so she could get the already spatially challenged dorm room to herself. The second thing she notices, though, is that she has a snappy sense of style and is wearing a jacket that Lydia thinks, should they be sharing closets, she might have exclusive roommate rights to use as well.

"Being the new girl sucks, doesn't it?" Lydia quips from where she's sprawled out on her bed with her Econ textbook when the girl first wheels her things into their room. It already looks cramped, even with just the girl's sparse boxes littering the floor, and Lydia only slightly mourns the loss of having thirty minutes of hot water all to herself during her morning showers.

The girl looks up at her. She's cute, adorable brown curls and dimples, and Lydia bets she'll get all kinds of puppy dog eyes following her home on the campus.

"Yeah, it does," she says. "Sorry I made you share your room."

"Don't worry about it," Lydia gets off the bed and folds open the first cardboard box the girl has stacked on top of the wardrobe. A strappy pair of heels meet her, ones that would go perfectly with Lydia's red dress, and her opinion of the girl's style skyrockets. Some people think she's shallow, but Lydia knows that style goes a long way in predicting things about people's personalities. "_If_ you let me borrow these."

Lydia snags the shoes by the ankle strap and dangles them by her finger. The girl smiles and nods.

"Sure," she says, and Lydia grins.

It looks like the start a beautiful friendship.

* * *

New girl doesn't have a lot of time to chat for the next few days, busy settling in and catching up on the three months of the first semester she missed. Lydia knows that college professors are all douchebags unless you work your cleavage in their direction, so when she sees the girl coming home at eight o'clock one night carrying a stack of textbooks and papers, she leaves her to her overload of work and takes a bubble bath instead. They don't have a chance to do much more than smile when they pass each other in the bathroom in the mornings, so Lydia doesn't find out her name until she realizes that she's sitting two rows ahead of her in her English class and the teacher calls out her name for roll.

It's Allison, which Lydia thinks fits her perfectly. It sounds like a sweet, good girl name and that's exactly what Lydia thinks when she looks at her sweet purple pajamas and the curves her dimples make in her cheeks, so from that point on Lydia stops mentally referring to her as _new girl_ but rather _Allison_. It's not a huge mental jump.

And because she's a good person and doesn't think anybody should have to suffer a whole semester sitting next to Greenberg, she grabs her bag, heads down two rows, and shoos him away to make room for her. He may be annoying, but Greenberg's pretty simple to boss around.

"Hey, roomie," Lydia chirps as she sets down her things and settles into her new chair. "Thought you could use a familiar face."  
Allison looks grateful, and Lydia gets her position. Being the only outsider in a group of individuals who've already formed strong opinions of each other and formed tight cliques is difficult, exactly like being back in high school, and college is all about experimentation and jello shots, not hating yourself and being left out of PE.

* * *

They do a few roommate initiation things, things Lydia decides will help her feel comfortable in her veritable outhouse of a room considering that it stretches what feels like a grand four feet wide, like hanging up photos together and watching movies with popcorn stolen from the kitchen pantry. It also gives Lydia the perfect opportunity to snoop through Allison's things as she lifts a faded frame from her box of decorations and examines a photo of Allison standing with her father and mother next to the Seattle Space Needle, her mother rather tight-lipped but her father dazzling the camera with bright happy teeth.

"Are these your parents?" Lydia asks, waving the frame in Allison's direction. Allison nods and props the picture up on her nightstand. "You look just like your dad."

"Yeah, he and I are really alike, too," Allison says with a smile. She has this look on her face like she misses her family and feels homesick for her father's stories and mother's hugs, and Lydia wonders what that feels like. The separated disaster that her parents have become is more of a facsimile of a family than anything else, but anytime she feels like being caught in the middle of the squabble and having her mother fuss over her she'll drop by at home again.

Allison starts telling Lydia about how her dad and her used to bowl every Friday and how protective he is of her and how she wonders how she'll ever be able to bring a boyfriend home because her dad would probably skin the poor guy alive and season him for dinner while Lydia plucks a stack of loose pictures from the bottom of the box. It's developed photography, clearly interpretive photography at best, and Lydia can tell that Allison made them all herself and went through the trouble of printing and developing them.

It all fits into Lydia's perception of her, that she's the type of person who puts time into being creative and who tries to find bits and pieces of herself through abstract art, and Lydia still isn't sure if she finds all of her sentimentality and ornamentation endearing or the sort of thing that you're supposed to grow out of in third grade, like having a pink bedspread or throwing bread crumbs at your crush. Lydia doesn't remember the last time she sat down with a table full of protective newspapers and made a piñata or attempted poetry, only ever putting effort into her outfits and her attitude.

They put in _The Notebook_ after they finish hanging photographs by Allison's bed because it's one of the few movies that Lydia always has on hand and settle onto the floor with a ragged comforter stored in the closet after they sneak downstairs to pilfer snacks from the kitchen, a popcorn bowl between them and the blanket pooled around their hips.  
The blanket very likely became infested with lice over the summer, because it's itchy and coarse like bristly felt, and Allison pushes it down to her knees halfway through the movie. They don't bother to turn on a lamp even as the room gets bathed in darkness, nothing but the bright light of the television illuminating them as they lean against the foot of Lydia's bed, work the bowl down to the rebellious unpopped kernels, and watch the film.

Allison's only wearing tiny shorts, exposing the skin from her thigh or where her side of the blanket is crumpled by her knee, and Lydia counts dozens of tiny goose bumps against otherwise smooth skin. It looks white under the bright light of the TV, a hemisphere of her face eclipsed in shadows when she turns to the side to look at Lydia and the other half glowing with strong light that contrasts to her dark brown locks. They've lost some of their bounce over the night, now loosely hanging over her shoulder.

"I haven't seen this movie in forever," Allison whispers over the music, shifting the popcorn bowl to her free side.

Somehow, by the time the credits roll, Allison's bare thigh is pressed against Lydia's and the space where an entire bowl of snacks sat between them is completely nonexistent.

* * *

When Allison spends the third night in a row studying in solitude on her bed, Lydia steps in like all good roommates would and drags her to a party.

She's wearing a sad little oversized shirt that's perfectly acceptable for doing homework in bed but does nothing for her body otherwise, so Lydia persuades her to try on one of her party dresses that shows off the long line of her legs and curves in at her waist. It's definitely enough to make the frat boys stumble over themselves just to say hi to her, so Lydia considers it a job well done on her part.

The party is just like all other college parties—loud, noisy, and somebody's duck-taped tequila bottles to their hands in the corner—but it's Allison's first party at this university, so Lydia hopes nobody throws up on the couch or starts doing Disney karaoke. There's a few losers here Lydia can already pick out, like that asthmatic McCall in her Economics class and Jackson, who Lydia steadfastly refuses to talk to, but she's pretty sure that Allison is a good enough judge of character that she'll find herself a nice boy-next-door and make out with him on the porch.

"See anybody here you know?" Lydia asks from the door, and Allison scans the area.

"Uh, some of these guys are in my Psych class."

"Anybody here you'd like to hook up with?" Lydia smirks, poising her hands on her hips and watching as a few freshmen frat boys check Allison out from the corner. She shuts them down with a hard glare of rejection considering that they probably have the emotional maturity of toddlers and Allison's first drunken make out at a college party shouldn't be an underclassmen better left off in high school for another year.

"What?" Allison asks, clearly thrown by the question. "No!"

Lydia pats her on the back. "Loosen up a little bit, Allison," she coaxes. She sees an army of pink drinks with tiny shiny umbrellas stacked onto a table to her right, so she grabs one, sniffs it, and finds the amount of alcohol her senses pick up an adequate amount to get Allison to relax. She pushes it into her hands and wraps her fingers around it.

"Drink it," Lydia tells her. "It'll make the entire room look much cuter. Make good choices!"

She whips around so she can find herself a drink as well and maybe recommend some actually good music to the DJ and leaves Allison to explore the big, bag world of college parties.

The party, as it turns out thirty minutes later, even without anybody throwing up on the couch, is still a total dud. The DJ isn't playing anything post 1999 and there's far too many intoxicated, shrieking freshmen attempting to breakdance for her taste, and she laments the fact that Allison's first party here happens to be so unfortunately boring. Whoever's hosting this party—she assumes it's that Stilinski kid since McCall still hasn't been asked to leave the party—should watch a few YouTube videos or read a few tutorials on how to throw a lively gathering or maybe start smaller, like a tic-tac-toe match on the campus lawn.

She's about to go find Allison when she finds her dancing with McCall, a few awkward bops of the head and shifting of the hips while Allison keeps her hands on Scott's shoulders and laughs politely along to whatever stuttering joke she's sure he just threw out of his ass, and honestly, the eager beaver freshmen with the lewd ogling would've been better choices. McCall looks like he's having the time of his life having a beautiful woman dancing with him and paying him attention, having spent his life getting the most action out of his bromance with Stilinski, and Lydia doesn't know what Allison's thinking going after such a loser.

What's unfortunate is that she looks like she's having a good time too, dimples sticking out when she smiles and hands curling over McCall's arms. Lydia isn't even sure why it upsets her if only for the fact that McCall doesn't deserve somebody so out of his league, and it upsets her so much she ends up finding Jackson and letting him make out with her on the porch next to where some stoned senior is creating a homemade bong.

It's not exactly the most graceful night of her life.

* * *

What's truly unfortunate is that after the party, McCall is absolutely smitten with Allison. He follows her around the dorm trying to make excuses like "my roommate used up all the laundry detergent, can I borrow some" and "I really suck at math, could you help me out," pedestrian tricks that Lydia thought boys improved upon since junior high. Allison indulges him because she's a sweet girl, too sweet, probably, and Lydia wants nothing more than to stomp up to McCall's dopey doe-eyed face and cuff him around the head so he picks his dignity off the floor again.

"McCall, don't you have a class to be getting to across campus?" Lydia grits out through a few batted eyelashes that she hopes accurately conveys her current state of irritation without seeming too overtly rude since, after all, her mother did teach her about keeping up appearances.

"Uh," McCall says, seemingly lost for words. It's a better look for him than when his mouth is open. "Yeah, I guess."

Lydia hands him his backpack and practically shoos him away like a rogue pigeon until he hitches his bag up his shoulder and walks across the lawn to whatever place Lydia is not going to be, and it feels incredibly satisfying to watch him slope away. It's almost pathetic how easy it is to get people like McCall to back down, and Lydia had a whole arsenal full of biting weapons she was ready to use to ward him away that she never had to use. Sometimes the world disappoints her in the way she never has a true challenge on her hands.

"That was a little mean," Allison murmurs to her across the table, the pages of her notebook flapping in the wind. "He's totally harmless."

"But he is annoying," Lydia says. "And that makes him fair game for me to say what I please to him."

Allison rolls her eyes but says nothing, which Lydia thinks is definitely her starting to get to know exactly how Lydia functions. Lydia picks a mirror from her purse and tries, as casually as possible, to examine the state of her foundation on her left cheek.

"Do you have a little crush on him?" Lydia asks. It comes out sounding a little shrill. Allison looks up from her homework again. There's a curious look in her eye that Lydia refuses to look at, fingers busy smoothing out the imperfection in her powder on her chin.

"He's nice, but no, not really," Allison says, smirking. "Are you worried about socks on the door?"

And Lydia tells her that yes, she doesn't want to worry about sleeping out in the hall with all of the drunken freshmen who can't find their own room numbers so they decide to nap in their own vomit, and Allison laughs and believes her.

* * *

The thing about Allison is that sometimes she's New Girl again, the stranger that Lydia knows nothing about, like when she rummages through the closet looking for her winter coat and suddenly a crossbow comes stumbling out from next to the shoe boxes.

"Allison," Lydia demands, holding the crossbow with a few cautious fingers like it might go off with the slightest of wiggling while Allison comes out of the bathroom. Her hair is half curled and she looks adorable, a complete contrast to the dangerous weapon in Lydia's hand. "What's this?"

"A crossbow," Allison says with a smile. "I used to be really into archery, and I brought it just in case."

"In case what? A rapist raids the dorm and we have to protect ourselves?"

"No, in case I wanted to get into archery again," Allison laughs and takes the crossbow, folding it neatly together like it's nothing but a cute little trinket to be stored away in the closet next to the gloves and the decorative candles, right before she disappears back into the bathroom to finish her hair.

It's one of the strangest encounters of Lydia's life, but the worst part is that she finds out she didn't know Allison as well as she did. She met her and instantly wrote her off as a sugary little Snow White with dark locks and Tupperware of chocolate chip cookies, but it turns out she's also a little badass that knows how to shoot an arrow.

Oddly enough, it makes her ten times hotter than she was before.

* * *

Lydia gets invited to about five different Halloween parties, all on different corners of campus, and all requiring outfits that display at least sixty percent skin or else.

Last year, Lydia made the mistake of staying at the dorm for Halloween and running into the sad group of wallflower girls who were carving pumpkins and snacking on last year's stash of leftover candy, an official reminder that Lydia belonged with a different group of people on absolutely every night of the year. Besides, she's overheard a few neighboring dorm rooms cooking up a scheme to prank their dormitory, and if Lydia wakes up with a papier-mâché ghost looming over her door or toilet paper wrapped around the roof she'll be personally seeking retribution.

"Do you want to go to a Halloween party?" Lydia asks Allison from her bed two weeks before the party, scrolling through the text message invites in her phone and ultimately deciding the one with the best grammar is the winner of her attention.

"Sure," Allison says, closing her book. It's October and there's a chill in the air that permeates the whole dorm like a promise that the heater will be committing suicide multiple times during the winter, but Allison's sitting in her bed in skimpy shorts and a tank top. Lydia doesn't remember her legs being that long. "But I don't have a costume."

"That isn't a problem," Lydia says, turning off her phone and bouncing off her bed to pick her through her closet. "Pretty sure you'd fit well in my old Snow White costume."

She holds a slightly wrinkled, immensely puffy dress out of the corner of the closet and flourishes it before her. Allison would fit the dress perfectly, what with her innocent smile and pale skin and dark hair. Getting a few doves to fly out of her sleeves could probably be arranged too.

* * *

Lydia has a sack full of Reeses, freezing fingers, and one semi-cute guy's number in her bra when she and Allison come home from the Halloween party two weeks later. There are tiny carved pumpkins on the porch of the dorm with candles flickering through their eyes, proof that the dateless-girls-carving-pumpkins-gathering has turned into a tradition, and Allison lifts the hem of her dress before they climb the stairs and slip inside.

Lydia didn't mind the party. It wasn't hosted by her, so naturally it wasn't as good as it could have been, but it was held inside a spacious off-campus apartment rather than a cramped dorm room, so it was an upgrade from the last party she had the misfortune to attend. From what she can tell from staring through the holes in masks and overhearing voices, McCall and Jackson and all the other members of the male sex she wanted to avoid tonight were busy trick-or-treating or bobbing for apples in their own homes, so despite having to endure witnessing an entire crowd attempt to Monster Mash, her evening was passably enjoyable.

"I have to say," Lydia says while she stomps after her up the stairs and out of the cold. She's done a lot of walking and dancing tonight and is looking forward to getting out of her heels. "Two hours of dancing along to _Thriller_ was not exactly what I expected out of that party."

"At least we have chocolate," Allison grins, sticking the rest of a Snickers bar into her mouth and tossing the wrapper into the nearest trash bin. The dorm is dark, indicating that they've clearly missed curfew even if everybody is out tonight either haunting a friend with a ghost made out of a shower curtain or squeezing into the sluttiest possible Halloween outfit possible.

They sneak upstairs without a single creak to the steps when both of them remember to jump the third step just in case their stick-in-the-mud RA comes leaping out at the top of the steps ready to hand out demerits like Halloween candy, and by the time they make it to their room and flick on the lamps, all of the lights turn off with a few eerie flickers.

Down the hall, a kid screeches "it's a ghost!" and a few responding shrieks meet the hysteria. Lydia rolls her eyes and is about to feel her way to where she knows her phone is on the nightstand when suddenly Allison is in front of her as a dark figure in the shape of a girl. A hand lands on Lydia's arm and Lydia grabs it.

"I'm sure somebody thinks they're being funny," Lydia snaps darkness, but she whispers it nonetheless. Through the dark, Lydia hears something snap into place. "What's that?"

"It's my crossbow," Allison whispers back. "Just in case."

She moves by her and the warmth on Lydia's arm slips away as Allison heads for the door, creaks it open, and slips into the hall. Lydia follows her, very much aware that she's setting herself up for the beginning of all Halloween horror films, reaching out to hold onto the fabric of Allison's dress if only to hold something solid in her hand as reassurance. The hall is pitch black, full of nothing but darkness, when a stair creaks and a heavy breath sounds and Allison aims her arrow.

Lydia doesn't know if letting the monster know of their appearance by shooting pointed objects in its vicinity is a great idea, certainly not an offering of peace if nothing else, and she grabs Allison's arm to stop her from pulling the trigger when she hears a telltale chuckle.

"Jackson!" she screeches, and honestly, what kind of prank is this. Jackson's normally too good for this sort of childish malarkey, busy devoting time to other completely useless activities that swell his ego. The lights flicker back on to illuminate Jackson, doubled up on the stairs with a few other cronies from his lacrosse team standing behind him, apparently proving that turning off the fuse box is a team effort. "That's not funny, Jackson!"

Jackson wheezes through laughter like seeing Lydia genuinely terrified at the thought of a supernatural burglar prowling up the stairs is the most hysterical thing he's seen since he brutally injured that one opponent during his last lacrosse team and watched him hobble from the field to call his mother. Lydia sweeps her hair from her face and resists the urge to whack him over the forehead.

"You realize there's other people in this dorm, right?" Allison sighs, clearly not amused as she lowers her crossbow. It reminds Lydia that she's there, jaw set and crossbow tight in her hand. The way she's standing under the dim light of the hallway, poofy Disney dress fit for a three-year-old's costume party snug around her waist and a sleek black weapon in her grip, it's the most oxymoronic thing Lydia has ever seen come to life in front of her. It reminds her again just how many layers there are to Allison, and that under the girl who gets candy sent to her by her family in care packages there's a fierce woman who knows how to handle a bow. It awes Lydia a little bit.

Jackson's still laughing his head off, up until the point that their RA appears like the awakened dragon of the night and gives him the reprimanding he deserves, and if it teaches Lydia anything, it's that she's one hundred percent done with boys.

* * *

The dorm, for all of its horrendous organizational abilities, always plans a nice Thanksgiving meal.

The unfortunate part is that all of its inhabitants are responsible for cooking it.

Lydia is stuck with stuffing duty, which she definitely didn't sign up for, but it was either that or dish washing, which after preparing a meal big enough to feed an entire army of hungry soldiers, she's not going willingly agreeing to be scrubbing over a filthy sink all night long. So instead she spent the better part of an hour picking spices from the dusty cabinets and trying to create an acceptable meal in front of her whole hoping that the ham in the oven won't set off the smoke alarm. It's not her responsibility, but still. She doesn't exactly want to deal with firemen on their fiftieth visit to a house that couldn't handle the kitchen appliances.

She's still picking the stuffing out from under her nails when she skirts by a table of cranberry sauces and sidles up next to Allison, who's in the middle of mixing a batter for the pumpkin pie that smells like autumn in a bowl. Lydia sticks her finger in the mixture and licks it off.

"I'm pretty sure this counts as child labor," Lydia says, only slightly disgruntled that her hands are going to smell like poultry all evening long. She leans against the counter and breathes in a whiff of seasonal spices that actually manages to relax her while Allison, hair falling out of her bun over her ears and smudged apron secured around her waist, continues stirring the contents of her bowl.

"Except we're all going to eat the fruits of our labor in about two hours," Allison smirks.

_Two hours_. Lydia keeps forgetting how long it takes to prepare turkeys the size of her torso. She's not exactly keen on eating it considering who she's been watching handling the bird all day long. She delicately cracks her neck and dips her finger into the batter again to steal another dollop. Allison grabs her wrist to stop her.

"You want to leave some for everybody else?" Allison teases. Lydia raises an eyebrow like she's never heard a more brainless question. Allison grins and guides her wrist forward so she can lick the glob of batter off her finger.

It startles Lydia a bit to see her tongue dart out to suck it off her manicured fingertip, eyes downcast as she releases Lydia's hand and grins secretly to the bowl. Lydia's properly speechless for a few moments, a redness on the tips of her cheeks she hasn't felt since a boy in second grade lifted her skirt for the whole class to see during recess, but the prickly tingles stop their journey up to her ears the moment Allison grabs a handful of flour and flicks it in her direction, hitting her square in the face and powdering down her chest.

* * *

Lydia loves finals week, because it lets her see everybody else at their absolute worst.

She wakes up to the sound of a girl crying hysterically through the wall as a result of what Lydia can only assume was an unsuccessful all night studying session, nearly bumps into a guy pacing the hallway who's blind to everything but the stack full of notes in his hands, and overhears McCall on the phone downstairs in the kitchen begging his friend for help before his 10 a.m. final, all of which make her day that much brighter. There's a mass hysteria about finals that wafts through the whole building like bad case of lice, an unavoidable plague that scares the shit out of otherwise relaxed students even if finals aren't worth that much more than regular test grades anyhow. It inspires kids to have breakdowns and downgrade their fashion sense to sweat pants and beanies like test taking is an arduous art, and Lydia steadfastly refuses to join the mob mentality and succumb to the madness. She's going to teach those tests a few things about being a challenge.

She returns to her room with two ridiculously overpriced Starbucks pastries that she intends to share with Allison just as Allison's heading out of the bathroom, fluffy towel wrapped around her chest and wet hair tumbled over her shoulders. The towel is small, too small to do justice to its job of concealing private regions, and all Lydia sees is inch after inch of wet skin. Lydia feels the crazy, sudden urge to lick at the gathering of droplets in the dip of Allison's clavicle that she quickly stomps to its death.

"Here," Lydia says, and absolutely does not stare at the exposed sliver of skin that the towel reveals of Allison's thighs. She's still wet, damp droplets of hot shower water still clinging to her skin, and Lydia stuffs the cinnamon roll into her hand and then decides to turn straight back around out of her room.

* * *

Lydia is a very good friend. A very, very good friend, who not only supplies wisdom and sugary pastries on tiresome mornings, but also provides massages after gruesome finals.

Except she wouldn't do this for anybody but Allison. Only Allison.

"I probably should've studied more," Allison bemoans over the sound of the television. A mindless sitcom is on, a tinny audience laughing along every two point five seconds, but Lydia's focusing on the way Allison's bare shoulders are rolling under her hands and her back is heaving with every gentle exhale she lets loose.

"I'm sure you did fine," Lydia says, digging her thumbs into the base of Allison's neck and listening to her soft groan. She hates giving massages. She always made Jackson give them to her, her hands too small for the expanse of his back and whatever other appendage he wanted rubbing for. A room away, a girl is still crying. Lydia doubts that she's stopped since six this morning. "You do well on all your tests."

"Do that again," Allison breathes, chin resting against her chest like being slumped against the couch is the only thing keeping her upright. Lydia's thumbs press into the muscle where her neck meets her shoulder again and Allison shivers under her grip.

"You better be returning the favor later," Lydia tells her as her hands slide down her back and hiccup over her bra strap. Allison answers with a low _mmmm_ that Lydia interprets to mean yes.

Twenty minutes later she does, and afterwards Lydia goes to take a shower and uses the shower head in a few inventive new ways that ends in her coming with a gasp that the sound of rushing water swallows. The shame of masturbating to the sensations of her roommate's hands kneading at her lower back tries to push into her mind, but Lydia's very good at shunning away the things that she doesn't need.

* * *

A hush falls over the dorm after finals are over, like all the studying has been muffling the peaceful Christmas atmosphere that was lingering for weeks unnoticed, the kitchen fridge suddenly full of eggnog that Lydia wouldn't trust because it smells strongly of sour milk and the entire downstairs area full of people wearing Santa hats drunk off said eggnog. The dorm really starts emptying out, weeding out the pompous freshmen as the majority of the residents pack a duffel and go home for the holidays to stuff their faces full of ham, and Lydia is perfectly content staying at the dormitory catching up on beauty sleep and soaking in the silence.

Until, that is, she finds out that Allison's leaving to see her parents for Christmas.

She doesn't know why, but she assumed that Allison would stick around. She's heard her talk about her family before—her bubbly aunt, her protective father, her mother's to-die-for tiramisu—but she figured that they'd be taking the dorm by storm together when it would empty out over the holidays. It's pathetic how upset she gets when she finds out that Allison's not staying, especially considering she was queen of this room and this dorm for quite a few months before Allison moved here.

"You'll be gone until January?" Lydia asks, trying valiantly to mask the way her voice dips with a peak of disappointment. Allison seems to sense it anyway and smiles over her shoulder as she packs a scarf into her suitcase.

"Just to show my family I'm still alive," she says. She's only packed a few clothing and her laptop and a handful of books and somehow the whole room seems vacant of any furnishings.

She thinks about calling Jackson, after she's painted her nails and taken a warm shower and stoops to the level of watching black and white Christmas specials on cable TV, but thinks better of it and decides the douchebag will suffer much more if she stays silent. She looks over at Allison's night stand where the tacky little Christmas tree she put up to be festive sits unperturbed before she zeroes in on where there's a box with horribly ugly snowman wrapping paper surrounding it sitting on Allison's pillow.

Lydia's a big snoop, so she gets up and investigates, pulling on the tag hanging out from under the bow. It reads "to Lydia" in black ink, and Lydia only takes one moment to marvel that Allison went through the trouble of picking out a gift for her when the most Lydia's ever given her is a few free lunches at the coffee shop on campus and let her borrow her shoes, tearing through the paper and opening the box. Sitting inside is the purse Lydia's been admiring from afar for a few weeks, the purse Lydia didn't even tell Allison about, and it leaves her wondering how she went from being roommate-less to acquiring one that knows her well enough to make spot-on Christmas purchases for her.

* * *

Lydia doesn't think there's anything quite like ringing in the new year with a pitcher full of margaritas.

Sneaking alcohol into the dorm under the watchful eye of their RA was laughably easy, and it makes Lydia weep for how the freshmen will ever learn discretion under authority when they start slipping joints and tequila into their rooms with absolutely no tact.

She sets up a veritable bar on the dresser to greet Allison when she comes back after her visit to her family, since there's nothing quite like warming up with the help of some vodka after being stuck out in the snow traveling all day, and slips into a festive skirt that's much too cold for December weather. She's hooking up her iPod to the speakers and looking for wherever Dick Clark is on television surrounded by confetti and shrieking, drunken New Yorkers plus thousands of tourists defying the laws of science by somehow all squeezing into Times Square when Allison comes home, looking winded by travel and the weather if the tiny flakes of snow on her hair are any indication of how much December weather is setting in.

Lydia hugs her with more squeezing than she had originally intended and Allison doesn't even protest the rib-bruising as she hugs her back and lets Lydia push the awaiting tequila in her hand. There's a bunch of noise, from the dorm next door and the music Lydia has blasting and the sound of Times Square roaring in unison, and they sit in the middle of it all while Allison tells her about her family and how after the third day her parent's constant questions of how dorm life was and how many friends she had were getting a little stifling. Lydia learned during the first party she brought her to that Allison doesn't exactly hold her liquor well, and after her fourth drink Lydia whips up as an experimental cocktail, Allison's telling her about how her mother's cat has gotten fat and how spring break will not be a repeat of her visit home during winter break.

They drink a lot, which Lydia has no problem with up until the point that she's no longer in control of her inhibitions. There's a party going on next door if the yelling and the random celebratory roar of "opa!" through the wall that feels like it's pounding directly against Lydia's eardrum are any hints, so she downs another martini and tumbles onto Allison's bed. Everything there smells like Allison's soap intermingled with the heady scent of alcohol, and suddenly Lydia's rolled on top of her and she's kissing her, a warm chest in her palm and soft lips on her own.

Lydia doesn't stop to think about what's happening, too busy focusing on the soft pressure of Allison's lips under hers. Allison gasps but Lydia swallows it, kissing away her surprise and tangling her fingers into a fistful of windswept locks. She sticks her tongue out and tastes vodka on all of her senses, her head dizzy as Allison flips them over and somehow ends up on top of Lydia, a hard line of an overheated body pressed against her as Allison kisses back. It feels different than boys, somehow softer when there isn't stubble grazing her cheek and callused hands shifting on her hips, even if Allison's kisses are anything but gentle. For such a timid individual with an innocent set of dimples, Allison hides an animal under her skin lured out by what Lydia can only assume is inebriation.

Avril Lavigne somehow gets onto the iPod, filling the room as nothing but white-washed background noise when Allison makes a quiet noise of pleasure on her lips and slides her hand up Lydia's stomach. The touch is invigorating and ticklish and electrifying to her oversensitive nerves and makes her reach out to slip two fingers over the curve of Allison's bra. She feels hot flesh under the fabric when Allison's breath hitches at the touch.

"Lydia," she gasps, nothing but a breathy moan that sounds like it begins with an L and ends with an "ia," and Lydia drinks the sound up. Allison is both demanding and dominating and practically begging for Lydia to lay her out and reduce her to nothing but incoherent panting if the way she arches into her body is a sign, and Lydia revels in the image of her submitting to her ministrations in a way that seems to break through the alcohol and spur her on even more.

She thinks about the last person she did this with—Jackson—and how different his hands and his body felt. Getting Jackson over the edge is laughably easy, a few minutes of handiwork and he's done, and she loves the fact that she can sense that Allison's going to be a challenge. She's different, entirely different not because she's a girl but because she's _Allison_, an unpredictable girl with twists and turns to her personality at every corner.

She moves her mouth from Allison's lips to her neck, a creamy expanse that's salty flesh on her tongue when she licks up to her ear. Allison starts giggling, and God, she's drunk, but Lydia silences her with a bite to her shoulder that pulls another broken breath from her throat. Lydia feels every whimper and shudder course through her skin from how she's pressed up against her body, the slightest of licks evoking responses from Allison and squeezing her pride of being good at this no matter if it's a dick in her hand or a plump chest pressed flush against hers. Lydia slips a hand up Allison's shirt and unhooks her bra with a few flicks of her fingers until it snaps free. Allison pulls back to stare down at her, tangled brown hair tickling Lydia's shoulders and lips swollen. Lydia bets that mouth could have a few hidden tricks to share.

"Yours too," Allison says, and Lydia pushes at her chest until they're sitting up and Lydia can slide her bra free and out of her sleeve. Allison watches the movements like she's either enamored or scheming something wicked that Lydia will let her do if she has the guts to try, so she pulls off her shirt as well as encouragement and watches as Allison's eyes rake over her chest. She looks nervous and flushed and turned on and it's probably the first naked chest she's seen that isn't her own and Lydia's shameless about it, tipping forward on her knees to kiss her again and pin her bottom lip between her teeth. She can tell that Allison isn't sure where to put her hands, so Lydia sets the example and slides a hand up Allison's shirt to thumb over a hardening nipple and squeeze.

It's college, and Lydia doesn't care if she's straight or drunk or touching her roommate's breasts. If her tiny little gasps are anything to go by, Allison hardly minds and is just as up for experimenting as she is, not to mention that it's been historically proven that Lydia gets what Lydia wants, so Lydia pushes forward and slips her hand between Allison's legs to tease her clit through her pants. There's a promising dampness there and Allison nearly goes bonelessly pliant under the touch, but a moment later Allison pushes at her shoulders and stops her.

"It was just getting good," Lydia drawls, rubbing a circle through Allison's jeans until she stills her wrist to stop her.

"I wanna—" Allison bites her lip and gets what Lydia swears is a mischievous sparkle to her eyes before she lowers lashes and smiles. Her smile is wicked, like a mirror of Lydia's smuggest smirk, and Lydia thinks she's learned well from being her roommate. "Just—let me."

And without another word, Lydia's pushed against her pillow and staring at the ceiling while Allison pulls Lydia's skirt down her ankles and doesn't give her panties a second's pause either before she throws them both to the floor. Lydia props herself up on her elbows and stares as Allison settles into the V of her legs, nudging apart her knees and grabbing her thighs.

"What are you doing?" Lydia asks sharply. She feels like she's figured this girl out all wrong, mistook her for the epitome of innocence when she's about to— "_Oh_."

There's a good chance Allison's never done this before, but Lydia doesn't even notice her inexperience as her tongue laps at her clit in slow, teasing licks. For all their talk of loving pussies, boys love getting head much more than they like giving it, and Lydia can't remember the last time anybody's done this for her. Allison's tongue presses flat against her swollen clit, gently sucking, and Lydia lets out a breath she wasn't even aware of holding in.

"Use your—_yes_," Lydia murmurs to the ceiling, hands fisting at Allison's strands of hair and tugging when Allison slides a finger inside her alongside her flicking tongue, and apparently she doesn't mind the attack on her scalp because Allison only speeds up the kitten licks of her tongue and starts developing a rhythm with her slender finger that has Lydia panting in a way that, in any other situation, would be embarrassing. She throws caution to the wind and lets Allison see her vulnerability, hips bucking helplessly forward as Allison keeps up the ruthless assault of her tongue on her clit.

The best and possibly worst part about this is that it's the sort of thing that Lydia never would've expected out of timid Allison, but maybe the crossbows and the killer heels should have been warnings that she's perfectly capable of pushing Lydia to her back and eating her out. This side of her, the aggressive side normally hidden under a sweet smile, this is a side that only Lydia's ever seen, people like McCall who lust after Allison only mentally envisioning and guessing at what it'd be like. She gets to see what nobody else does.

"Allison," she breathes out, her lungs no longer in control of her breath as it jumps from her throat, feeling a pleasure bubbling up in her midsection like pinpricks and heat and low waves of bliss like the foamy tide of the beach washing over her, and Allison seems to understand because she grips her hips and, if she wasn't giving one hundred percent before, she starts giving double that now as her fingers—when did she even add another?—rub relentlessly inside her and her tongue speeds up.

Lydia comes hard, much harder than she has herself for a while, and everything is a tingly, blurry world swimming in front of her for an eternity until Allison pulls the wet heat of her mouth away and reality starts coming back. She isn't sober, not entirely, can still feel the steady thrum of adrenaline under her skin next to the residual waves of her orgasm, so Lydia takes advantage and sits up, pins Allison against the bedpost, and slips her hands inside her panties.

It definitely wipes the satisfied smirk off Allison's face when Lydia pushes against the wetness and tugs on the coarse curls her fingers find. She feels Allison slump against the wall because this, this Lydia knows she's good at, and she better be considering that she's only been practicing since she was thirteen. She knows how to twist her fingers and shift her wrist and overload the senses until her mind's fully committed to the force of her orgasm. She pushes up Allison's shirt while she slowly rubs rhythmic patterns onto her clit, leaning in to lick over Allison's nipple and grin against her chest when Allison's whole body convulses with her gasp as a response.

Allison's responsive to every one of Lydia's touches, from the soft sucking on her neck to the way her fingers work at her and tease her to the edge, gasping and grinning like she's euphoric, head against the wall while she lets Lydia take control of her senses. It doesn't take long for her to come, and Lydia knows exactly when, can tell by the way her breathing speeds up and her whole body arches into Lydia's touches, legs quivering before she lets loose a few breathy laughs and tumbles onto Lydia's chest. She kisses her again, just a few soft, post-orgasmic kisses that taste of apple martinis, and that's how they fall asleep.

The next morning Lydia gets up with Allison tucked onto her chest and bare legs brushing her thighs and the television now softly sharing tidbits of news until Lydia slips to her feet, pulls a robe from the closet, and closes all of the vodka bottles before she makes more potentially bad decisions. She won't know exactly how bad until Allison wakes up. Considering how eager she was to eat Lydia out, she doesn't think she'll be regretting it too much. Thirty minutes of freaking out in solitude at the most, which Lydia can handle.

Allison doesn't wake up until eleven, thoroughly sleep-mussed and hungover when she first peels her eyes open. Lydia's nursing a cup of coffee on the couch in her robe and smiles at her when she sees Allison rise from the dead and stare at the empty glasses sitting on top of the dresser that, nine hours ago, were filled to the brim with alcohol, with dread.

"Morning," Lydia chirps. Her liver is built out of iron. Aside from a mild headache, the alcohol has yet to faze her, a super power that Allison clearly doesn't share as she rubs the sleep from her eyes and groans at the sight of the clock. Lydia hands her her coffee and watches as Allison drinks from it like it's the first gulp of water she's had after years in the desert.

"Oh god, it's after eleven," Allison moans. "I bet all the warm water in the shower is gone."

Lydia takes her coffee cup from her and cocks her head to the shower while she twirls a single red lock around her finger. Allison looks up at her, hair a mess and one hundred percent nude under the sheets that are gathered over her, and doesn't look like she's about to have a mild lesbian existential crisis, so Lydia takes a chance.

"We could share what's left of the hot water," Lydia says with a flirtatious smile as she tips her head down to survey her under arched eyebrows, and Allison takes a few seconds to process the implications before she smiles. It's light now, no more fumbling in the darkness, and Lydia can only imagine what it'll be like to touch Allison when the daylight permits her to memorize every inch of her body.

Lydia leads the way to the shower, returns the favor Allison paid her last night, and stays under the shower head much longer than the water heater permits them both using hot water to little notice of either girl.

* * *

"So is this a thing?" Allison asks through the dark where they're camped out on the floor. Even through the shadows, Lydia picks up on the dimples shining on Allison's cheeks as she rolls forward over the mass of flimsy blankets piled into a heap on the floor like they're back in seventh grade and hosting slumber parties. All that's missing is the game of Clue and braiding each other's hair. They've already done the lesbian experimenting.

"What do you want it to be?" Lydia asks, letting Allison reach over to play with her fingers and slot them together. Allison's hands are smooth, freshly lotioned and thread neatly between hers.

"I like it being a thing," Allison admits. "I'm pretty sure I'm still straight, though."

Lydia huffs out a laugh, squeezing Allison's palm. "Yeah, you were super straight when you let me eat you out earlier."

Allison giggles and Lydia feels a ridiculous warmth prickle through her chest at the noise. Allison's adorable no matter how much she tries to dial it down and Lydia falls for it every time. Allison leans forward until Lydia can feel a warm puff of breath exhale on her shoulder and two of Allison's fingers slip underneath her bra strap to rest there.

"Maybe not absolutely straight then," Allison concedes. Her free hand is still playing with Lydia's fingers, squeezing her palm and leading her fingers to her mouth so two of them rest on the pad of her tongue. It's oddly arousing and Lydia bites her lip as Allison gently sucks her index finger before releasing it again. "Think we should have a pillow fight?"

"And then we watch _The L Word_ and listen to Indigo Girls?" Lydia huffs. "That is, if you want to turn into a lesbian entirely."

"Turn into a lesbian?" Allison repeats, and Lydia can hear the smile though all of her words. "What, is there a class and a final exam?"

"Pretty sure I already passed it," Lydia says cheekily, tugging her hand out of Allison's grip and rolling on top of her. Her hair tangles over her shoulder and falls by Allison's shoulder, a bright auburn contrast to her dark locks. Lydia's eyes adjust to the darkness as she focuses in on the white of Allison's eyes before she leans in to suck a trail down her neck that Allison instantly arches into.

"Okay, no pillow fights," Allison concedes, hands curling around Lydia's hips. "But a prank call, maybe."

* * *

When the weather gets better in March and spring starts pushing through the lingering winter frost, Lydia and Allison start leaving the heated hole that their dorm felt like in the deep of winter and doing homework on the campus lawn stretched out on picnic tables. Lydia's gotten awfully pale over the long January and sits in the sun basking in the warmth while she brushes up on her math and Allison shares her lunch next to her. It proves to her that time, even when she doesn't want it to, does eventually pass and that soon another year of college will be done and she'll be one step closer to wowing the real world as a fully-functioning adult with an entire arsenal of impressive degrees.

Sometimes Allison will pillow her head in Lydia's lap while they share lecture notes and sometimes they'll lounge in the grass and Allison will show off the residual talents of her childhood gymnastics classes. She's extremely flexible as she hops through the grass and gets green stains on her shoes, laughing under the sun while Lydia watches her. Her dress tumbles over her eyes when she does handstands and that makes them both laugh extra hard.

Not even McCall showing up to wave to Allison and make small talk with her ruins her afternoons, especially considering she uses this splendid opportunity to finger Allison under the safety of the table while he talks and she tries desperately to keep up. It makes Lydia feel supremely evil, so evil that she can't keep the smug smirk off her face even as McCall eventually starts heading for the English building and Allison glares at her.

"You're terrible," Allison grits out, readjusting her skirt.

"Considering I just gave you a great orgasm, I'd rethink that statement if I were you," Lydia says, leaning over the table to snatch a slice of apple from Allison's bag of lunch. She pops it into her mouth with relish and feels extremely satisfied.

She stills feels satisfied two weeks later, in fact, when Allison gets her payback by recreating the entire scene when Lydia gets a call from Jackson at a party and Allison drags her into a bathroom to tease her through her underwear while she attempts to comprehend the tinny words Jackson's saying over the phone. All heinous intentions aside, it isn't exactly a bad evening.

"Think you'll look for a new roommate next year?" Allison asks with a grin when she's kneeling between Lydia's legs and pushing her hips onto the wall to keep her from squirming into her touch. It's definitely a form of torture, but Lydia lets Allison have her way as long as she'll get her off before the next ten minutes. Allison licks a stripe up her thigh and Lydia smirks at the wall while a loud party rages on outside and the low sounds of bass thump through the floor.

"Absolutely," Lydia tells her, tangling a hand into her hair. If she's going to come out of this bathroom looking like sex personified, Allison is too. "Anybody but you."

Allison laughs at that, a loud happy laugh that vibrates through the whole room, and they don't emerge until thirty-two minutes later when a freshman with a poor bladder capacity pounds on the door demanding entrance.

Okay, so maybe Lydia doesn't mind having a college roommate. And she probably won't mind having one next year either.


End file.
